Abigail Hawk is thankful for Tom Selleck’s support after he helped her land a series regular role on Blue Bloods. The actress revealed that initially, she was only supposed to make a cameo in season 1 of the series.
“My audition was for the episode right after the pilot once it got picked up,” she said during Blue Bloods: Celebrating a Family Legacy, which aired on CBS on November 29. “It was really only meant to be one episode.”
“You know Abigail started and she had one line, and she earned that position,” Tom, 79, said.
Abigail, 42, has portrayed Abigail Baker for each of the show’s 14 seasons, appearing in more than 260 episodes of the series.
“Tom advocated for me and it changed my life,” Abigail remarked.
The Illinois native recalled what her first day on set was like with Tom, whom she has shared so many scenes with over the years.
“My first day on set, Tom took me aside and said, ‘Hey, I really am working on curating this authentic reality and if we view Frank Reagan as this colossal, larger-than-life man as the king — the king, he can’t show his feelings; he can’t actually express what is going through his mind because he has the burden of being the leader, but his team—his inner circle, those that he trusts, and his advisors—they can show the stress of the job,’” Abigail said during an interview with Country Living in October.
“I come from the theater world; I am a very expressive individual and here I was stepping into the shoes and self-creating this stoic, composed, poised, mature woman who was the exact opposite of me and just having him go — my favorite thing was when he’d take me aside and go, ‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do but if I were you, have you considered, maybe try…’ and then you would see this lightbulb go on and I would just nail the next take just because of some small tweak or suggestion that he would give me,” she said.
Sadly, Blue Bloods will be ending, with the season 14 finale set to air on Friday, December 13. Abigail made it known that she planned on taking a prop with her from the show’s set to help commemorate all of the memories made.
“I’m making it very public and well known what I’m taking with me. It is that door that is directly behind you because I have let so many people in and out of that office,” she said while pointing to Frank Reagan’s glass door. “I already have a minivan for it. We’re ready to go.”
And she wasn’t the only cast member who had their eye on something from the set. Donnie Wahlberg ended up taking a couple of things from the show’s set.
“I took my two Danny Reagan costumes — my blue suit and my dress blues,” the actor told People in an interview published on November 30. “I put them on mannequins and put them in a Wahlburgers.”
“I really had no intention of taking anything from the set until I learned that that table and chairs was just sitting in a warehouse somewhere,” he added.
The New Kids on the Block singer said that he will move the table and chairs between multiple Wahlburgers locations so that fans of the show will have the opportunity to see it in different states.
“I’ll set it up where fans can sit at the table and take pictures,” Donnie, 55, explained. “And then I’m going to raffle it probably for charity for the DEA, the Detectives Endowment Association, for the Widows and Children’s Fund.”